Huawei’s Tech4ALL initiative promotes digital inclusion
Huawei announced its digital inclusion initiative, Tech4ALL at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2019. During his speech at the ministerial program of the MWC, Deputy Chairman of Huawei, Ken H, underscored how digital inclusion should be more comprehensive. ‘While much of the telecommunications industry is focused on next generation technology like 5G and AI,’ Hu said, ‘we can’t forget that there are still many people excluded from the digital world. There are still more than 3.8 billion people who are offline, and one billion people without mobile broadband coverage.’ To this aim, Tech4ALL is crafted to tackle digital inclusion for individuals and organisations equally through addressing: (a) connectivity: providing remote areas and extreme climates to access digital resources, (b) applications: providing an easy-to-use development platform, thriving in the ecosystem, and generating applications, and (c) skills: improving the digital capabilities of organisations, local communities, and national digital economies. Huawei further acknowledged that digital inclusion necessitates collaboration between governments, industry organisations, and enterprises to provide the required technology that meets the needs of local communities as well as different groups and organisations.